Using computers to teach people with intellectual disabilities to perform some of the tasks used within cognitive behavioural therapy: a randomised experiment

Aims Training has been shown to improve the ability of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) to perform some cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) tasks. This study used a computerised training paradigm with the aim of improving the ability of people with IDs to: a) discriminate between behaviours, thoughts and feelings, and b) link situations, thoughts and feelings. Methods Fifty-five people with mild-to-moderate IDs were randomly assigned to a training or attention-control condition in a single-blind mixed experimental design. Computerised tasks assessed the participants’ skills in: (a) discriminating between behaviours, thoughts and feelings (separately and pooled together), and (b) cognitive mediation by selecting appropriate emotions as consequences to given thoughts, and appropriate thoughts as mediators of given emotions. Results Training significantly improved ability to discriminate between behaviours, thoughts and feelings pooled together, compared to the attention-control condition, even when controlling for baseline scores and IQ. Large within-group improvements in the ability to identify behaviours and feelings were observed for the training condition, but not the attention-control group. There were no significant between-group differences in ability to identify thoughts, or on cognitive mediation skills. Conclusions A single session of computerised training can improve the ability of people with IDs to understand and practise CBT tasks relating to behaviours and feelings. There is potential for computerised training to be used as a “primer” for CBT with people with IDs to improve engagement and outcomes, but further development on a specific computerised cognitive mediation task is needed.

Postural control and automaticity in dyslexic children: The relationship between visual information and body sway

Difficulty with literacy acquisition is only one of the symptoms of developmental dyslexia. Dyslexic children also show poor motor coordination and postural control. Those problems could be associated with automaticity, i.e., difficulty in performing a task without dispending a fair amount of conscious efforts. If this is the case, dyslexic children would show difficulties in using "unperceived" sensory cues to control body sway. Therefore, the aim of the study was to examine postural control performance and the coupling between visual information and body sway in dyslexic children. Ten dyslexic children and 10 non-dyslexic children stood upright inside a moving room that remained stationary or oscillated back and forward at frequencies of 0.2 or 0.5 Hz. Body sway magnitude and the relationship between the room's movement and body sway were examined. The results indicated that dyslexic children oscillated more than non-dyslexic children in both stationary and oscillating conditions. Visual manipulation induced body sway in all children but the coupling between visual information and body sway was weaker and more variable in dyslexic children. Based upon these results, we can suggest that dyslexic children use visual information to postural control with the same underlying processes as non-dyslexic children; however, dyslexic children show poorer performance and more variability while relating visual information and motor action even in a task that does not require an active cognitive and conscious motor involvement, which may be a further evidence of automaticity problem. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome in Machado Joseph Disease: Core Clinical Features

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Cognitive Deficits in Machado-Joseph Disease Correlate with Hypoperfusion of Visual System Areas

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Cognitive and olfactory deficits in Machado-Joseph disease: A dopamine transporter study

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Use of myoelectric signals to command mobile entertainment robot by disabled children: Design and control architecture

Severely disabled children have little chance of environmental and social exploration and discovery. This lack of interaction and independency may lead to an idea that they are unable to do anything by themselves. In an attempt to help children in this situation, educational robotics can offer and aid, once it can provide them a certain degree of independency in the exploration of environment. The system developed in this work allows the child to transmit the commands to a robot through myoelectric and movement sensors. The sensors are placed on the child's body so they can obtain information from the body inclination and muscle contraction, thus allowing commanding, through a wireless communication, the mobile entertainment robot to carry out tasks such as play with objects and draw. In this paper, the details of the robot design and control architecture are presented and discussed. With this system, disabled children get a better cognitive development and social interaction, balancing in a certain way, the negative effects of their disabilities. © 2012 IEEE.

Multimodal exercise intervention improves frontal cognitive functions and gait in Alzheimer's disease: A controlled trial

Aim: The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of a multimodal exercise intervention on frontal cognitive functions and kinematic gait parameters in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Methods: A sample of elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease (n=27) were assigned to a training group (n=14; aged 78.0±7.3years) and a control group (n=13; aged 77.1±7.4years). Multimodal exercise intervention includes motor activities and cognitive tasks simultaneously. The participants attended a 1-h session three times a week for 16weeks, and the control participants maintained their regular daily activities during the same period. The frontal cognitive functions were evaluated using the Frontal Assessment Battery, the Clock Drawing Test and the Symbol Search Subtest. The kinematic parameters of gait-cadence, stride length and stride speed were analyzed under two conditions: (i) free gait (single task); and (ii) gait with frontal cognitive task (walking and counting down from 20 - dual task). Results and discussion: The patients in the intervention group significantly increased the scores in frontal cognitive variables, Frontal Assessment Battery (P<0.001) and Symbol Search Subtest (P<0.001) after the 16-week period. The control group decreased the scores in the Clock Drawing Test (P=0.001) and increased the number of counting errors during the dual task (P=0.008) after the same period. Conclusion: The multimodal exercise intervention improved the frontal cognitive functions in patients with Alzheimer's disease. © 2012 Japan Geriatrics Society.

Effects of square-stepping exercise on cognitive functions of older people

Aim: Cognitive functions can decline with age, and interventions focusing on stimulating them may have positive results. Previous studies have shown that square-stepping exercise (SSE) has a good influence on balance, but this exercise also seems to promote cognitive stimulation. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to analyse the effect of 16 weeks of SSE on cognitive functions in non-demented community-dwelling older people. Methods: This was a longitudinal, non-randomized study. Forty-one older adults (60 years and older) were recruited, and 21 participated in the SSE group (practised only SSE sequences) and 20 were in the control group (continued with their activities of daily living). Both groups were evaluated using the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Digit Span test, the Toulouse-Pierón Attention Test and the Modified Card Sorting Test. Results: The SSE group showed a significant improvement in global cognitive status, concentrated attention and mental flexibility after 16 weeks of the SSE intervention. Conclusion: Evidence shows that SSE is a physical activity that positively influences cognitive functions in non-demented older people. © 2013 Japanese Psychogeriatric Society.

Sleep deprivation affects sensorimotor coupling in postural control of young adults

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Explicit and implicit knowledge of environment states induce adaptation in postural control

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit and implicit knowledge about visual surrounding manipulation on postural responses. Twenty participants divided into two groups, implicit and explicit, remained in upright stance inside a moving room. In the fourth trial participants in the explicit group were informed about the movement of the room while participants in the implicit group performed the trial with the room moving at a larger amplitude and higher velocity. Results showed that postural responses to visual manipulation decreased after participants were told that the room was moving as well as after increasing amplitude and velocity of the room, indicating decreased coupling (down-weighting) of the visual influences. Moreover, this decrease was even greater for the implicit group compared to the explicit group. The results demonstrated that conscious knowledge about environmental state changes the coupling to visual information, suggesting a cognitive component related to sensory re-weighting. Re-weighting processes were also triggered without awareness of subjects and were even more pronounced compared to the first case. Adaptive re-weighting was shown when knowledge about environmental state was gathered explicitly and implicitly, but through different adaptive processes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Physical Exercise Improves Peripheral BDNF Levels and Cognitive Functions in Mild Cognitive Impairment Elderly with Different BDNF Val66Met Genotypes

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Respiratory training as strategy to prevent cognitive decline in aging: a randomized controlled trial

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Variability in obstacle clearance may (not) indicate cognitive disorders in alzheimer disease

The aim of this study was to investigate obstacle clearance and its variability in individuals with Alzheimer dementia (AD) as well as healthy elderly individuals while they approached and crossed an obstacle in their path. Fifteen people with AD and 15 age-matched/sex-matched healthy individuals (control group) participated in this study. Clinical assessment of both groups was performed by a neuropsychiatrist. Spatial-temporal parameters of 5 trials of unobstructed walking and 5 trials of obstacle crossing during walking (approach and crossing phases) were measured using a 3-dimensional optoelectronic system. The results indicated that individuals with AD showed higher variability in the approach phase for stride length and the horizontal distance from their trailing limb foot to the obstacle. However, their gait variability in the crossing phase was similar to the control group. In addition, the individuals with AD were found to walk slowly and with a short stride length in both conditions. In conclusion, individuals with AD had increased gait variability while approaching an obstacle during walking, indicating a deficit in planning to avoid obstacles that could be related to cognitive disorders. However, gait variability during the crossing phase may not be indicative of cognitive disorders in AD.

Elderly Individuals with Diabetes: Adding Cognitive Training to Psychoeducational Intervention

The present research examined the effects of a cognitive training program combined with psychoeducational intervention for diabetic elderly patients. Specifically, it aimed at assessing the effects of an eight-session cognitive training and educational program in diabetic elderly individuals and investigating changes in their awareness about specific aspects of diabetes. The final sample consisted of 34 individuals-19 in the experimental group (EG) and 15 in the control group (CG), all residing in the eastern region of the city of Sao Paulo. The protocol included clinical and sociodemographic questions; the Diabetes Attitudes Questionnaire (ATT-19); Diabetes Knowledge Scale (DKN-A); Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE); Verbal Fluency-animal category (VF); Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS); Short Cognitive Performance Test (SKT); and the Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test (RBMT). Results pointed to a significant difference between the two groups for the ATT-19, DKN, and SKT-memory and SKT-total, and a marginally significant difference for the RBMT history in the posttest. As for the remaining cognitive variables, no changes were observed. Retest effects were not observed in the CG. We concluded that cognitive training combined with psychoeducational intervention in diabetic elderly individuals may be effective in producing cognitive gains as well as attitude and knowledge improvement concerning diabetes mellitus (DM).

Memory-rescuing effects of cannabidiol in an animal model of cognitive impairment relevant to neurodegenerative disorders

Rationale Cannabidiol, the main nonpsychotropic constituent of Cannabis sativa, possesses a large number of pharmacological effects including anticonvulsive, sedative, hypnotic, anxiolytic, antipsychotic, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective, as demonstrated in clinical and preclinical studies. Many neurodegenerative disorders involve cognitive deficits, and this has led to interest in whether cannabidiol could be useful in the treatment of memory impairment associated to these diseases. Objectives We used an animal model of cognitive impairment induced by iron overload in order to test the effects of cannabidiol in memory-impaired rats. Methods Rats received vehicle or iron at postnatal days 12-14. At the age of 2 months, they received an acute intraperitoneal injection of vehicle or cannabidiol (5.0 or 10.0 mg/kg) immediately after the training session of the novel object recognition task. In order to investigate the effects of chronic cannabidiol, iron-treated rats received daily intraperitoneal injections of cannabidiol for 14 days. Twenty-four hours after the last injection, they were submitted to object recognition training. Retention tests were performed 24 h after training. Results A single acute injection of cannabidiol at the highest dose was able to recover memory in iron-treated rats. Chronic cannabidiol improved recognition memory in iron-treated rats. Acute or chronic cannabidiol does not affect memory in control rats. Conclusions The present findings provide evidence suggesting the potential use of cannabidiol for the treatment of cognitive decline associated with neurodegenerative disorders. Further studies, including clinical trials, are warranted to determine the usefulness of cannabidiol in humans suffering from neurodegenerative disorders.